Walking back to the Burrard SkyTrain station after posting
my previous diary, I saw a
young woman crouched down on the ground, against a wall. She was crying sorrowfully.

My heart went out to her, but I just walked on by. I've seen her around before: she's
asked me for money several times. There's something that's not right about her. Perhaps
she is a meth addict. She is rail-thin and further, there is something about the way
she moves and the contorted expression she usually has on her face that makes me
think she has some kind of neurological damage.

"What can I do?" I thought to myself.

As I got to the train station I thought, "I should have bought her something to eat."
But still I got on the train and didn't go back.

I'm sure to see her again though. She is one of the regulars downtown.

A couple days ago an older woman asked me for money and I just said "I'm sorry, I
can't help you". "But I'm so hungry!" she said.

Things aren't so tight that I can't afford to buy a meal for a hungry person.

It occurred to me just now I could carry around some kind of snack in my backpack,
granola bars or something, and offer it if there isn't anywhere nearby to buy someone
a meal.

My first week here I bought meals for several panhandlers. Everyone seems to think
I was crazy then, but I think I was a better person for it.

The Sad Woman Didn't Want Supper

Today after work I went looking for her.

I also realize now that I met her somewhere before. When I've seen her on the
street since then, I thought she was a meth addict, but I don't think so now. I
think she is mentally ill, and badly so.

I generally see her somewhere along Burrard Avenue, but I didn't have to go far to
find her tonight. I rode the SkyTrain from Waterfront to the Burrard station, and
found her sitting just uphill from the station, the same place I saw her last night.

I thought to myself "They're not going to let her into McDonalds with all those blankets".

She was crying and holding her head in her hands. I crouched down and said "Hi, what's
your name?" She shouted something, but I couldn't make it out.

"Would you like something to eat?" She shook her head in refusal, then started speaking
loudly and rapidly. I couldn't make out her words. I thought perhaps she didn't speak
English. But then I thought maybe she's speaking in
Word Salad.

A man stopped and handed her a blue card, saying "Merry Christmas". She threw it on
the ground in front of her.

"I'm going to go get you a burger, OK?" This really upset her. She started yelling,
I don't know what, but waving her arms. Then she picked up her blanket and her knit
cap, which had some coins in it, and hurried up the street then sat down against a
light pole.

There's no damn good reason to be homeless in a country like The Soviet Republic of
Canuckistan. But even safety nets have holes in them: the shelters won't house addicts
because that enables their addiction, and some crazy people either refuse treatment or
are just too far gone to know they could get free room and board for the asking. Some
are too far gone to find their way back if they wander too far from home.

In the bed next to mine, on the other side of a curtain, was a very disturbed woman.
She was making a racket all day and night. She was fiending for a cigarette but
they wouldn't let her have one. Instead the nurse offered her medicine to reduce her
craving, but it didn't seem to be helping.

I'm pretty sure now that was the sad woman.

I didn't see her again after they moved me upstairs. I was in the Two-North Mental
Health Unit. There is also one on Two-East, that I was told was "secure": for more
deeply disturbed patients. I expect they admitted her there. No one on my ward was
wigging all that heavily. She must have gone to Two-East.

I picked up the blue card that that man tried to give her. It was for
Raven Song Addiction Services. Is she an addict? To cigarettes yes,
but I don't have the sense she is to anything else.

Many here have advised me not to give money to panhandler, lest they spend it on
liquor or drugs. Better to buy them a meal or to give to charity. But sometimes
I do give them money. I'm going to tonight, if she's still there when I go back to
the train station for the ride home.

I have a ten-dollar bill in my wallet. I'm going to give it to her then ask her to buy
something good to eat.

I don't think the reason she cries so sorrowfully is because she is hungry or homeless.
Perhaps she is addicted, but I don't think that's why she cries. No, I think she cries
because her own mind torments her mercilessly.

I know this, because there have been times my own mind tormented me so.

She Wasn't There

I looked around some, but she was nowhere to be found. I hope she went off to find some
shelter.

On the way to the station, before I realized she wasn't there anymore, I emptied all my
pocket change into a Salvation Army collection bucket. The two folks there were pretty
surprised and grateful. It was about five bucks.

I read The Vancouver Sun today that a special effort was made to clean up
the refuse that was scattered all over the Downtown Eastside, and they found
eight thousand used syringes scattered everywhere.

Read this essay online or reprint it at:http://www.vancouverdiaries.com/sad-woman.html

This is a chapter from The Vancouver Diaries:http://www.vancouverdiaries.com